Kerala Bird Race 2019 -Invitation

India Bird Races 2019 - 20
to enjoy birds … and learn from their ways

LET’S COME TOGETHER FOR OUR BIRDS

A rendezvous with birds of and around urban India!

The 13th KERALA Bird Race will be held on Sunday, 01st December 2019.

The Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Limited (HSBC), along with Kerala Birder, Cochin Natural History Society, Kerala Agricultural University along with Kerala’s birding community, are organizing this unique programme in and around the city. The all-India coordinator for the India BirdRAces is The Yuhina Canopy, while UWM is the Facilitating Partner.

As more of us people come into the urban world, we are not only shrinking natural landscapes immediately around our expanding urban centers but also our impacts on nearby wildernesses is escalating as well.

The India BirdRaces are a popular, non-competitive program for the joy of birding, that serves to bring together all the birding enthusiasts, from rank beginners to experts and professionals, as well as NGOs, birding groups, city administrations, forest and wildlife personnel and others in every city it is organized. This exciting program is conceptualized to help look at the avifauna (birdlife) of our urban and their surrounding wealth of habitats and serve to popularize bird-watching and help lead to a better understanding of other aspects of our biodiversity and environment.

After all, birds are often the foremost attraction for anyone interested in exploring the natural world. Birds are often also the most visible and moving indicator for changes happening around us, changes influenced by our actions. The BirdRaces help document many sites around every venue, up to an area of at least 40 – 50 km from the radius of every urban area, and we get a trend of what is increasing or retreating or disappearing.
These BirdRaces are simple, enjoyable and interactiv events, beginning from dawn and ending at an interactive get-together at a prominent venue, over dinner and chats and presentations and sharing of thoughts and lots more.
There is a Bird-of-the-Day team prize this year.
The evening Meet-Up of the program this year will be at The Surya Luxury Hotel, Near Kochi Intl. Airport, Railway Stn. Road, Angamaly.

The Chief Guest of the Function is Sri. S Unnikrishnan(IFS), Deputy Conservator of Forests, Kerala Forest Department .

 There will be a screening of the documentaries  The Urban Canopy(Dir: Sujith M G) on the importance of our vanishing urban biodiversity of Kochi city and White Cloud(Dir: Mahesh Maanas)  both by the Green Grace Trust followed by Dinner.

With nearly 3000 people collectively partaking across more than a dozen Indian cities between November and March, the India BirdRaces are possibly the greatest birding event.
Invaluable data has been gathered to this fun event that is no less serious than science.
A day well spent for the cause of birds and urban environment!
All bird enthusiasts are encouraged to participate!!

For participation register at:

Click Here:

There will be a briefing session at Mangalavanam Bird Sanctuary at 5 pm Saturday 30 November

For details contact:
9446437410

Vishnupriyan Kartha.K

Salim Ali Bird Walk, Thattekkadu, 17 November 2019.

CNHS Bird Walk at Thattekkad -In Pictures and Video

The Bird Walk at Thattekkad Bird Sanctuary in memory of Bird man of Kerala, Sri. K K Neelakantan  was held on 16th June 2019. Some pictures from the events.Pictures are courtesy of  participants.

CNHS Bird Walk at Thattekkad A short Video

Ernakulam Heronry Survey 2019- Orientation Meeting

Wetlands in an agriculture-dominated landscape are known to support high bird diversity. Besides supporting bird populations these wetlands also provide ecosystem services in the form of cattle grazing, harvest of multiple wetland products (e.g., reeds, fish, silt, etc.), and water for agricultural and domestic purposes. These wetlands support non-breeding as well as breeding populations of water birds, including those that form heronries.Heronry birds are flagship species and good indicators of the health of the wetland ecosystem (Kushlan 1993; Frederick et al. 2009). Monitoring of heronry birds, hence, is useful in understanding the impact of pollution on the wetlands of agriculture-dominated landscapes and patterns off climate. The simple aim of the Heronries Census is to collect counts of 'apparently occupied nests' (aon) of herons, egrets and other colonial waterbirds from as many heronries as possible each year.

Many heronries hold a dozen or more nesting pairs, even a hundred or more, and occupy traditional, well-known sites that are active for many decades. Smaller and shorter-lived heronries must also be included in the counts, however, to ensure that the data represent the whole population. Even single nests of any of the normally colonial heron or egret species are relevant to the Heronries Census, even if only occupied for one season.

Changes in the numbers of nests over time are a clear measure of population trends. The more heronries that can be counted each year, the more certain we can be of population trends at national, regional and local scales.

Some of the traditional Heronries in Ernakulam District have been identified. But many more remain undiscovered.Therefore we need to make an all out effort to locate and identify as much as Heronries and we need as many volunteers to help us in this effort.
So please come to Mangalavanam on Saturday 11th May 2019 for a detailed discussion and  planning.

ശാന്തിവനത്തിലെ പക്ഷികൾ

Birds of Santhivanam




പാരിസ്ഥിതികവും ചരിത്രപരവുമായി ഏറെ പ്രാധാന്യമുള്ള ശാന്തിവനത്തെ സംരക്ഷിക്കുന്നതിനായി ഇടപെടുക

Ernakulam Heronry Survey 2019

Dear all,

In this time of severe, all around loss of biodiversity and the climate change, it is imperative that we try to preserve whatever habitat and , life birds such as waterbirds and herons who provide enormous ecosystem services to the community.

With an aim to do something in this direction we intend to conduct the survey of Heronries in Ernakulam district this year onward.
Towards this end a preliminary meeting is proposed to be held at 5 pm, at Mangalavanam Bird Sanctuary (behind Kerala Highcourt) on Satureday 13th April 2019.

All nature enthusiasts and in fact anybody  with interest and are willing willing to volunteer for this  survey are ivited to participate in the meeting wherein more information and rationale will be shared and the strategy to achieve this objective will be discussed.

Warm Regards,

Vishnupriyan Kartha.K
Secretary
CNHS
9446437410(WhatsApp)


Click here for the Report in New Indian Express

An Appeal to the Management of HMT Ltd., Kalamassery Unit for protecting the Wooded areas of HMT Campus

Sri.S.Balamurugesan
General Technical Manager
HMT Limited,
Machine Tools Division,
HMT Colony P.O.
Kalamassery 683 503,
Ernakulam Dist.



Dear Sir,

Sub:-Film shooting at HMT Estate, Kalamassery- Disturbances to the area caused by the Film Unit.Reg



At the outset, we wish to thank you and the company for maintaining excellent green cover in your Kalamassery estate which comprise of diverse habitats like evergreen forests, shrub forests, grass lands, wetlands etc. Because of such a nature friendly eco system maintained by the company around 200 species of birds have been recorded by researchers and bird watchers from Kalamassery .The area is also rich in other flora and fauna. This green cover coupled with wet lands has also protected the water table of Kalamassery from going down and in fact there are wells in Kalamassery which supply drinking water to Cochin City. This has also helped in maintaining a lower atmospheric  temperature level in Kalamassery.The Kerala Forest Department has also recognized the bird diversity of Kalamasssery by releasing a poster ) mentioning 191 species of birds, including many endangered species.



In this context, we note with concern that some areas of the estate has been let out for film shooting and the people working for putting up sets for the film are doing so with total disregard for environment, cutting down full grown trees, using road rollers to level the terrain, where many tree dwelling and ground feeding birds are active. As per Indian Wild life protection act 1972 most of the birds are listed in under scheduled category and any offence towards listed species, habitat and nest is considered as hunting and punishable even if it occurs in a private land. It is the duty of citizens to bring to the notice of authorities any violation. However when some of our volunteers tried to point out the damage to the workers there, the retort was that they will fire crackers to drive the birds away or light fires and our volunteers cannot question.



Further there has been many wild fires in HMT Estate in recent time necessitating intervention of Fire force and people have to exercise caution while working there. However these film set workers have been smoking recklessly and also using electric cutting tools with sparks flying.



We also understand that these particular film unit has come to your company after they were denied permission by Forest Department in another area.



In view of the above we request your good selves to prevail upon these film people to exercise restraint and to be cautious in working this bio diversity hot point.



We once again thank you for your corporate social responsibility contribution in maintaining such a green and diverse campus, which is great benefit to the public at large.



Warm Regards,


Yours Sincerely,



Vishnupriyan Kartha.K
Secretary
Cochin Natural History Society
Reg.No.: ER 18/10 of 2010
Regd. Office:
(Klathil) Revathi Bhavan, Edathala P O, ALUVA-683561.
Telephone No.: 9446437410
e-Mail:-cochinnaturalhistorysociety@gmail.com

Facebook Page :-     https://www.facebook.com/CochinNHS/

Blog :-                       http://cochinnaturalhistorysociety.blogspot.in/

Kerala Bird Race 2018- Report and Pictures

The HSBC Kerala Bird Race 2018 was held in Kochi and surrounding areas on 30th December 2018.Birdwatchers and Nature enthusiasts from Ernakulam, Thrissur, Alappuzha, Malappuram, Idukki and even Tamilnadu actively took part in the annual event which is in its 12th year running. This year a total of 247 species of birds were recorded as opposed to 200 species last year.10740 individual birds were encountered as opposed to 5920 last year.

The birds sighted include 14 species of raptors (Greater Spotted Eagle, Rufous Bellied Eagle, Crested Goshawk, Crested Honey Buzzard etc.,) 7 species of woodpeckers including Greater Flameback. Largest number of a species sighted was 1000 Lesser Whistling Duck.

The highlight of the event (Bird of the Day) was sighting of a rare Eastern Orphean Warbler (Sylvia crassirostris) at Kalappara near Thattekkad, by Ginu George.

This is only the second sighting from Ernakulam. The previous sighting was in 2007.

Other highlights The area covered during the Bird Race were the wetlands of Ernakulam , Thrissur and northern end of Alappuzha, Eastern hilly region of Ernakulam and bordering Idukki ,

Various teams o birders were guided by Anoop C R, Basil Peter,Dr.Dilip K G Ginu George Mukundan K, Ijas Muhammed , Premchand Reghuvaran Manoj P G Vishnupriyan Kartha. K Prasanth T S ,Manoj K etc.,